Project description

• The overall awareness of creative economy is low. For most culture professional people it is hard to understand what is the difference between creative economy, creative industries and entrepreneurship in arts. These terms need clarifying.
• At the local and regional level, it is usually hard to decide how to develop creative economy and what are the most effective measures for that goal. The cities have to decide if they should make efforts to develop different sectors of creative economy or choose one or two specific areas and focus on developing them.
• It is usually not clear, what is the role of public sector and what should be in the hands of private sector. What are the possibilities for cooperation (public-private-partnership)?
• One important point in planning the strategies is their feasibility. In working out strategic documents, there is a risk to compile papers that have no firm basis in reality – they are not based on analysis and are more wish lists of a group of chosen people working with the document. It is usually hard to put these wish lists into reality and sometimes they do not solve the real problems or answer the actual needs of the city or region.
• How to develop a strategic plan that can be a real action plan for different stakeholders and can work on the basis of participants` common experience and needs? How to select, recruit and galvanize the stakeholders in each city? These are important questions that need discussions. The methodologies used for strategic plans in many Nordic cities so far need renewing and fresh approaches.
At the same time, most of the cities in Nordic countries understand, that there is a strong need for supporting artists and creative people to become more entrepreneurial and autonomous. In order to achieve this objective it is possible to use different ways of support and apply measures that aim at helping artists through various institutions or projects. But what are the first and most efficient activities for starting this work and what should be the outcome of these activities is not so clear. The experience of Estonia as well as of the United Kingdom shows, that creative people wishing to become entrepreneurs cannot get help from the state business consultancy agencies, as advisers there cannot adjust the business-oriented advice to the arts field. Thus, in the United Kingdom’s state business agencies special positions were created for advisers who counsel creative workers. In Nordic countries, some cities have also created supporting services, which provide creative people support and know-how for being more entrepreneurial.However this experience is insufficiently analysed. So far, no research is made comparing the practice of the UK and other European countries in developing creative economy with the experience and practices in Nordic countries. Yet it is clear that in different countries and also different cities it is necessary to apply different operational models for developing creative industries. The model of a metropolitan city in an English-speaking country cannot be copied one to one in a small town in a Nordic country. However, it is possible to use the experiences, best practices of different countries and cities for developing certain areas. For example, both in the UK and Amsterdam there have been created counselling centres, the aim of which is to support and train creative professionals both in starting entrepreneurship and in everyday business activity. Although the knowledge provided in these centres is in principle similar, the structure, funding sources and ownership of these centres in the Netherlands and UK are quite different. Which should be the suitable operational model for such a centre in Nordic countries and whether it is possible to use the same principles in case of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Estonia, is one of the questions needing answer in the current project.

Summary
Most Nordic countries have not included developing creative economy among their priorities and main problems related to it are quite similar:
• The terms used in the field of creative economy are complicated and unclear
• Studies that have been made for mapping and researching creative economy are insufficient and incomplete
• How should the development activities in the field of creative economy be divided among state, municipality and private sector
• Which is the best methodology for compiling a strategy for developing creative economy and which stakeholders should be included in the work
• How to create a strategy that would address the needs of the city or region and the implementation of which would be realistic
• How to use the experience of other countries and decide what is useful to adopt in the local context
• Whether the attention should be directed to developing as many creative economy sectors as possible or should a few priority sectors be selected .


RELEVANCE OF NORDIC BUSINESS SECTOR
The project is helping to create know-how for artists and creative people in order to develop the systems for supporting them in starting their own businesses. Cultural entrepreneurship and raising the entrepreneurial knowledge of cultural people improves the general business landscape in Nordic countries. At the same time, it is important to give more information about creative industries and explain how culture can cooperate with other sectors. The field of culture as a creative sector can enrich science as well as business with new ideas and strengthen these sectors. It has been understood in the whole world that the ideas of creative people are necessary for making other sectors more competitive.
The most renowned sign of Nordic countries in the field of creative industries is original design. It is important to hold this position and find other fields of creative industries that could successfully present Nordic countries in Europe and whole world.
As a result of the project, each participating Nordic country will find their potential in developing creative economy and creative industries, will learn the value cooperation between cultural and business sector and find new ways for employing creativity in the development of cities and regions.


BENEFIT FOR SOCIETY
For the society, it is important to inform that creative economy is a sector that operates on the border of culture and many other sectors. Through creative economy, creativity, new ideas and original thoughts are valued.It is time to change the opinion that culture is an expensive luxury that can be afforded only in periods of economic well-being. Creativity needs to be viewed as an increasing economic value, which helps to raise people’s general quality of life.It is important to recognise that culture, creativity and innovative ideas have a lot to offer to the society. Cultural sector is not second-rate, but can as an equal partner enrich many other sectors – business, tourism, innovation, etc. Cultural people need to be involved in city planning, compiling the development plans of business companies and other fields of life. Culture transcends borders, its social relevance increases with each year. Creative economy is exactly this part of culture that is especially related to transcending and joining different sectors.Developing creative industries creates conditions for developing cooperation between culture and public and private sector, increases business and builds image. In regions with a developed culture and many creative people, the inhabitants’ general satisfaction with their life quality is higher than in regions where culture is neglected.


OBJECTIVE
There are two main objectives:
1. To work out strategies and activity plans for developing creative economy in three cities – Tartu, Turku and Bergen.
2. To compile a textbook/manual which gives an overview of the possible measures, which can be used by Nordic cities for developing creative economy.

In working with these two main objectives, the more concrete sub-aims are set:
1. To work out strategies and activity plans for developing creative economy in three cities:
• To create suitable methodologies for each city for working out the strategy and action plan. In creating the methodology, the experience of project experts from other European countries will be taken into account
• To compile a package of suggestions for each city, based on an analysis of their existing strategies or helping them create a suitable strategy and action plan for creative economy development
2. To compile a textbook/manual:
• To compare the strategies and action plans used by the three cities with some experience in other European and Nordic countries and cities.
• To analyse the differences and common features of the measures used in the three cities, in other Nordic countries and in the chosen European countries (the UK and Netherlands). To analyse the factors which play key-role in choosing the suitable measures for developing creative economy (systems and amounts of subsidies for creative people, tendency to support cooperation between arts and businesses at the political level, decision-making power in different countries at the local level, power of private institutions in the field of culture etc).
• To give an overview of different measures which are used for developing creative economy in these three cities and analyse the reasons why the cities have chosen these measures.
• To give an overview of best practices and case studies (including errors) in the field of creative economy development.

Summary
There are two objectives:
1 To work out strategies for developing creative economy in three cities – Tartu, Turu and Bergen. In creating the methodology for strategies, the experiences of project experts from Europe will be taken into account.
2. To compile a textbook/manual, which gives an overview of the possible measures, which can be used by Nordic cities in developing creative economy. These measures will be analysed and compared to the experience in the UK and Netherlands.

PROJECT AMBITION IN AN EUROPEAN/INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
In the world it is increasingly realised that knowledge-based economy and creative ideas are the main generators of innovation and basis for economic growth. Richard Florida’s books on creative cities have inspired several cities in the world to change their attitudes towards creative people and analyse the creative potential of their cities.
In October 2006 the first pan-European study on creative industries was completed carried out by KEA European Affairs. This study reveals that the rise of the value in the creative economy sector is higher than the general economic growth, the turnover of the sector was comparable to that of the car industry and IT production.What is characteristic to the sector is that 28.8 % of the employees in the sector work as individuals or independent contractors (the average in other sectors was 14.1%).This shows that creative economy is a growing and increasingly important field, where dominates cooperation between small teams and associations.
The objective of the current project is to help Nordic cities to understand how to taking into account the potential inherent in creative economy and its characteristic nature to develop it at the optimal level.The project will answer the questions what is creative economy and which are the development trends in Europe and world. One of the outcomes of the project is a book, which will give a good overview about the actions, which are employed in Europe to develop creative economy and which of these actions can be best adopted and used in Nordic countries.The project results will also be of interest for other European countries, as they will give an overview of the specifics of Nordic countries and the choices of small countries in developing creative economy.
All the activities in the current project are planned to be continued, the participant cities plan to apply for support from EU programmes for implementing their strategies and actions.

LIST OF BUSINESSES INTERESTED IN THE PROJECT RESULTS
The project results will directly and indirectly benefit many organisations and companies in public, private and third sector. The partners who participate in the project and are direct beneficiaries of the project are:
Finland:Turku Municipality Turku Area Development - TAD Centre Turku School of Economics, Media Group
Norway:Bergen Municipality
Denmark:Copenhagen Region, Department of Regional Development
Estonia:Tartu City GovernmentEstonian Ministry of Culture
The Estonian Ministry of Culture supports Tartu’s participation in the current project, as the project experience of Tartu can be used for whole Estonia. Tartu is in the current case a pilot region, where plans developed in the strategy and action plan are tested and their benefit to creative professionals as well as to the economic and social progress of the region is assessed.
The project experts come from Amsterdam, the Netherlands and United Kingdom
SUCCESS CRITERIA
The success criteria for the Bergen Municipality are the following:
• getting specific ideas in creative economy development
• understanding which are the spheres the city should focus on
• increasing the competence

These criteria are important for all project partners and can be measured as values received by people and institutions directly participating in the project. For the project, however, it is important to share the knowledge with a possibly wide audience.
So, another important success criteria is the final quality of the text book/manual and possibility to deliver it to as many cultural institutions in Europe as possible. 200 copies of the book will be sent to each partner city and 100 to institutions in Europe and in Nordic countries.
The whole project is considered a success if all participant cities have by the end of the project compiled realistic and feasible strategies for developing creative industries and a book/manual has been produced and delivered.

ORGANIZATION OF PROJECT
The project organisation consists of project leader, partner organisations and experts.

The project leader is Tartu City Government.
The partner organisations are:1. Turku Municipality 2. Bergen Municipality
The project experts are:
1. Colin Mercer, well-known cultural expert in UK
2. Robert Marijnissen – leader of Amsterdam creative industry development team
3. Henric Sparre Ulrich – expert in creative economies from Copenhagen

Each participating city has to appoint two people to the project, who are responsible for working out a strategy and action plan for developing creative economy at the local level. External experts will be hired to help and assist the cities in working out their development plans and strategies. They will also help the cities to choose the methodology for working with the strategy.
On the basis of the strategies and action plans of the participating cities the experts will compile a textbook/manual, which will give an overview of different measures used in Nordic countries for developing creative economies. In compiling the book, experts will analyse the experience of the four cities and the experience of other cities in the UK, Netherlands, and Nordic countries. The book will be published in English and will also be electronically available on the Internet.
The project partners will meet three times during the project period. The first and the final seminar will be held in Tartu. The final seminar will form a presentation of project outcomes and delegates from different Nordic countries are expected to participate in the seminar. During the project period, all the participants will make a study visit to a chosen European city (Amsterdam) and visit the institutions and organisations that are dealing with creative economy. The more detailed timetable of the project is attached as an annex.
DELIVERABLES
May 2007 The first seminar in Tartu will be open for 50 delegates from Nordic and Baltic countries.
June – July 2007 Study-visit to Amsterdam.
August 2007 – February 2008 One of the experts will visit each participating city, giving consultancy and assisting in strategy-making process. During the period each city should finish the work with strategy or action plan and reach concrete results.
March 2008 Final seminar of the project will take place in Tartu and is targeted to 50 participants coming from Nordic and Baltic countries.

COMMUNICATION PLAN
The main target group of the project are municipalities and institutions dealing with creative economy. But it is also important to address the themes discussed during the project to a broader audiences and involve local media channels to discussions.
The main communication channels of the project are press releases and a website. Media channels in Estonia will be informed about all project seminars. Project press releases will be translated into English and information about seminars will be sent to partner cities, which will send these to the media channels of their region, city or country and to the parties possibly interested in the theme. Press releases will also be sent to the mailing lists of European cultural networks and institutions dealing with European cultural policies and cultural research in different countries. Information about the project seminars and activities will be available on the project website. The website will be published in English, but its various parts will also be available in different Nordic languages. For example, overviews of the strategies of the cities are available in the respective languages.The final result of the project, the textbook/manual will be produced in English and it can also be downloaded from the website.The book will be produced in 1500 copies. It will be sent to participating Nordic cities and experts, who can deliver them to their contacts.The website will be open to all visitors. It will be available in English, but the overviews of the strategies of the participating Nordic cities will be available in their own languages.
Separate press released introducing the book will be sent to Nordic as well as European countries, culture networks and larger and more relevant European cultural organisations.